More Characters, More Opportunity in the Twittersphere

6/3/2016

140 characters. Never has a set of numbers taken a world by storm (except for maybe 3.14?) With the inception of Twitter, people got used to changing their vernacular and imparting brevity to their musings. 140 characters taught people to get to the point. I’m not about to go into how Twitter has evolved over the years, but I do think it’s worth talking about their latest updates and how B2B marketers can take advantage.

How B2B Marketers Can Leverage Those Extra Characters

Twitter just announced some changes they’ll begin implementing over the next few months. Updates include:

Replies and media attachments no longer count as characters. Perhaps the biggest update of all. So there’s more room to possibly wax a little poetic.

Key takeaway 2: When including videos, photos or other media, you now have a greater opportunity to provide more context to support your content.

The ability to Retweet or Quote Tweet yourself—for those times when you want to ensure your important reflection doesn’t go unnoticed.

Key takeaway: Utilize the Quote Tweet to highlight a key point you really don’t want your followers to miss.

The removal of “.@”—Instead of needing the initial period to tweet out for all your followers to see, now a tweet that begins with a username can reach all of your followers. And if you want your followers to see a reply, you can just retweet for broader visibility.

Key takeaway: Be thoughtful of what you’re broadcasting because now your entire following is privy to what you say when replying to a specific tweet.

In its announcement, Twitter also revealed that they plan to introduce more updates in the future that allow for even better conversations. In the meantime, enjoy those precious extra characters!